Sample Project Timeline

How to Prepare a Grant Funding Timeline
Excerpted from “Grant Writing for Dummies”
http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/how-to-prepare-a-grant-funding-timeline.html
What is a grant timeline?
A timeline in your grant application tells the grant reader when activities (also
called process objectives) will begin and end during the grant’s funding period.
What should my timeline include?
When you develop a project timeline, keep in mind that the grant reader wants
to see answers to the following questions:
• What key tasks or activities need to be carried out to implement the
program successfully?
• Did the grant applicant include all tasks, from the day funding is announced
or awarded to the last day of the project’s funding time frame?
• Can each task realistically begin and end in the proposed time frame?
• Are evaluation activities included in the timeline chart?
• Who's responsible for seeing that each activity is implemented and
completed?
What should my timeline look like?
You can use your word-processing software to create a simple timeline table, or
you can elect to go with a simpler text document describing key project phases
and details. Just be sure not to overdo it with color; stick with one or two shading
selections (gray or a light color so the reader can still read the text in the table’s
cells).

Because you probably can't absolutely determine the number of disruptions and
malfunctions in implementing a grant-funded program, consider setting up your
activity start and stop dates in quarterly increments. However, if you do have
total control over the activities, you can use monthly increments to show when
they start and stop or begin and end.
See this figure for an example of an activity timeline. It shows what the program
plans to accomplish, when it plans to accomplish it, and who's responsible for
seeing the activities (process objectives) through the completion phase.